The Man of Feeling

Javier Marias’s stylish novel about the birth and death of a passion, new to Penguin Modern Classics

On a train journey from Paris to Madrid a young opera singer becomes fascinated by those in his compartment- a middle-aged businessman, his alluring wife and their male travelling companion. Soon his life of constant travel, luxury hotels, rehearsal and performance will become entangled with these three people, and the singer will find himself fatefully consumed by Natalia’s beauty. The Man of Feeling is the haunting story of the birth and death of a passion, told in retrospect. Intricately interweaving desire and memory, it explores the nature of love, and asks whether we can ever truly recall something that no longer exists.